We Want Our Covid-19 Insurance Package – Nurses, Midwives To Government

The leadership of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwifery Association (GRNMA) has called on the government to do the needful by honouring the payment of the promised Covid-19 insurance package.

The government, during the heat of the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, which led to a lockdown in the Greater Kumasi and Greater Accra areas, announced enhanced insurance and allowance packages for all frontline health workers in the fight against the pandemic.

This, according to the members of the association, has not been paid to any health worker in the country.

“No single health worker has received anything by way of Covid-19 insurance or allowance since the outbreak of the deadly Coronavirus disease in the country,” General Secretary of the GRNMA, Mr David Tenkorang Twum said.

Mr Twum made the revelation on the back of the association’s calls for the payment of Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) while speaking on Accra 100.5 FM’s morning news aired on Tuesday, July 12, 2022.

He said: “We know, as a matter of fact, that nurses, midwives or doctors who died in the line of duty during the fight against the pandemic have not been paid a dime by the government by way of insurance.

“The families of these colleagues who died as a result of helping to fight the pandemic have not received any insurance package or insurance”, he added.

Mr Twum stressed that since 2020, no insurance or 50 per cent allowance has been paid to any health worker.

“As an association, we have complained and the government seems to have turned a blind eye to our pleas,” he complained. He said nurses and midwives are at the lower edge of the system when it comes to salary payment in the health sector so any slight increment in the cost of living affects members.